Spanish Civil War timeline

1936
16 February: A Popular Front coalition of socialists, liberals, communists and regional nationalists wins the Spanish Republic’s general election. Right-wing conspirators immediately begin plotting to overthrow the government.
11 July: MI6 agent Hugh Pollard takes off from Croydon in a chartered plane for the Canaries. From there he flies General Francisco Franco to Spanish Morocco to launch a military uprising with the support of Spain’s fascist party, the Falange.
18 July: The army revolt spreads to the mainland and the Spanish Civil War starts. Workers’ militias put down the rebellion in most major cities. Hitler and Mussolini immediately transport Franco’s elite Army of Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar to begin the march on Madrid.
22 July: Britain rejects an urgent request from Madrid to purchase fuel supplies.
3 August: Britain and France present proposals for an international ‘Non-Intervention Agreement’ for Spain. All the European powers agree, but Germany, Italy and Portugal continue to send weapons, aircraft and troops to the fascist rebels.
22/23 August: Artist Felicia Browne becomes the first British casualty of the Spanish Civil War. As a member of a communist militia she was killed while on a mission to blow up an enemy munitions train near Tardienta in Aragón.
4 September: Francisco Largo Caballero of the PSOE socialist party takes over as the Spanish Republic's Prime Minister from José Giral of the Republican Left party.
16 September: The Communist International (Comintern) decides to call on national communist parties to recruit volunteers for the International Brigades.
26 September: The Soviet Union decides to send arms to the Spanish Republic.
18 October: The International Brigades are formally established by a decree of the Spanish Republic. They are based in Albacete.
8 November: International Brigade units go into action for the first time and check the fascist advance on the outskirts of Madrid. British volunteers, part of an English-speaking company in the German Thälmann Battalion, engage in fierce fighting in the University City.
24 December: Start of the Battle of Lopera, near Córdoba, which claims the lives of more than a dozen British and Irish volunteers in the French Marseillaise Battalion. Meanwhile, recruits from Britain are arriving in Spain in sufficient numbers to create a separate British Battalion.

1937
8 February: Málaga falls to the fascists. Refugees are mercilessly bombed and shelled on the ‘Road of Death’ to Almería. Thousands of Republican supporters in the city are also assassinated in a brutal repression replicated everywhere in the Francoist zone.
12 February: The newly formed British Battalion sees action at the Battle of Jarama, south east of Madrid. Some 150 men are killed, but the fascists fail to cut the Madrid-Valencia highway to encircle the city.
26 April: The historic Basque town of Gernika is fire-bombed by Hitler’s Condor Legion. The atrocity is immortalised in Picasso’s painting ‘Guernica’, which is displayed in the Spanish Republic’s pavilion at the world fair in Paris.
3 May: A police move to regain control of the telephone exchange in Barcelona sparks five days of street clashes in which government forces overcome anarchist and revolutionary Marxist militias.
17 May: Juan Negrín replaces fellow PSOE socialist Francisco Largo Caballero as Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic.
23 May: Arrival in Southampton of the steamship Habana bringing 4,000 refugee Basque children from Bilbao escaping Franco’s bombing campaign in northern Spain. The British government only lets them enter on condition that no public money is spent on their upkeep.
6 July: The British Battalion takes part in the Republican offensive at Brunete, west of Madrid. Initial gains are soon reversed by superior fascist airpower. The battalion suffers more than 70 deaths.
24 August: The British Anti-Tank Battery joins the successful assault on Quinto in Aragón in a move to take Zaragoza. The British Battalion joins the action against nearby fascist defences and at Belchite, which is captured after desperate hand-to hand fighting.
23 September: The International Brigades are formally incorporated within the Republican Army, with a quota of Spanish soldiers in each battalion.
21 October: Gijón is overrun by the fascists, completing their conquest of Republican territory along the Atlantic coast.
6 December: Labour leader Clement Attlee visits the British Battalion at Mondéjar. In appreciation the No.1 Company is renamed the Major Attlee Company. Another visitor is the American film star, singer and political activist Paul Robeson.

1938
8 January: In a major boost for morale, Republican forces capture the city of Teruel.
17 January: In bitter cold and several feet of snow, the British Battalion is brought into to the defence of Teruel. Despite ferocious artillery bombardment, the ground is held, but at the cost of 24 lives. Franco brings up more troops and firepower and on 21 February the Republican Army retreats from the city.
7 March: Franco launches a blitzkrieg-style offensive through Aragón. The British Battalion and other Republican units retreat in disarray. The battalion suffers 120 losses in clashes at Belchite, Caspe and Calaceite. Scores are also captured. The International Brigades HQ is rapidly moved from Albacete to Barcelona.
3 April: Fascist forces reach the Mediterranean at Vinaròs, thereby cutting Republic in two. The British Battalion regroups north of the Ebro.
25 July: The Republic launches a daring offensive across the Ebro along a wide front. The British Battalions’s advance is halted at Gandesa by fierce fascist counter-attacks. The Battle of the Ebro claims the lives of 90 British and Irish volunteers.
21 September: Socialist prime minister Juan Negrín announces the withdrawal of the  International Brigades. While Britain and France negotiate with Hitler and Mussolini to abandon Czechoslovakia, the move is a last desperate attempt to shame the Western powers into forcing Germany and Italy to pull their forces out of Spain.
23 September: Final day of action of the British Battalion at Corbera d’Ebre.
28 October: Cheered by enthusiastic crowds, 13,000 International Brigaders march through Barcelona in an emotional farewell parade. Dolroes Ibárruri – La Pasionaria – tells them: “You are history. You are legend.” Meanwhile, fighting at the Ebro continues until mid November, by which time all the early Republican gains have been reversed.
7 December: The returning British Battalion arrives at London’s Victoria station to be greeted by tens of thousands of supporters. Clement Attlee is among those to make welcoming speeches.

1939
26 January: Barcelona falls to Franco’s forces. Two weeks later the fascists reach the French border. Half a million refugees flee to France, where they are interned in concentration camps.
27 February: Britain recognises Franco’s government.
5 March: Supported by anarchists and dissident socialists, Republican General Segismundo Casado seizes power in Madrid with the aim of ending the war. MI6 involvement in the move is suspected.
26 March: In defiance of Prime Minister Juan Negrín, who wants to fight on, Casado orders an end to resistance. Franco’s forces march into Madrid. Casado escapes on a Royal Navy ship to London.
28 March: The last refugee ship to leave Spain is the British-crewed Stanbrook with 2,600 Republicans on board. They are taken to safety in French Algeria.
1 April: Franco declares victory. International Brigaders pledge to “continue the fight we helped to wage in Spain”.

Until 1975
International Brigaders form the International Brigade Association. The IBA initially campaigns to free foreign International Brigade veterans imprisoned in Europe. After the Second World War it sponsors lawyers to observe trials of political prisoners in Spain and sends food parcels to their families. Brigaders mount regular protests outside the Spanish embassy and against visiting representatives of the Franco regime. Activities continue until the dictator’s death in November 1975 and Spain’s return to democracy.

Places mentioned in the timeline.